- Levels of the Game
"Levels of the Game" is a
1969 book byJohn McPhee , nominally abouttennis and tennis players, but exploring deeper issues as well.The book is structured around a description of the semi-final match in the
1968 U.S. Open Championship atForest Hills , played betweenClark Graebner andArthur Ashe ; Ashe won, and went on to win the Championship, becoming the onlyamateur to win it in theOpen era ).It alternates between sections which describe the match, and profiles of the two contestants, who had come to tennis from completely different environments. They had known one another for half their lives (they were both 25 at the time).
This was a concept that interested McPhee, who wanted to explore how such long interaction, and the dissimilar backgrounds of the two, shaped the encounter between them.
It was described by Robert Lipsyte of "
The New York Times " as "the high point of Americansports journalism ".External links
* [http://www.johnmcphee.com/levels.htm Levels of the Game] at John McPhee's web site
* [http://www.tennis-history.ws/showproduct/0374515263/ Reviews]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.